


Some Furious Purpose

by HopefulPenguin



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen, Lots of Original Characters - Freeform, The Great Crusade, Warhammer 30k - Freeform, graphic depictions of paperwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefulPenguin/pseuds/HopefulPenguin
Summary: M30.960. The Great Crusade surges into the Eastern Fringe. At its head is the 12th Expedition Fleet, led by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman. The next target for compliance is the strategic world of Karda, which sits astride the confluence of several stable warp currents. But the Kardans know about the Imperium, and are prepared to defend their home to the last man. The stage is set for the defining contest of the eastern Great Crusade.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. The Arrival - Guilliman

The fleet flashed into real-space in a burst of purple light, streamers of warp-stuff dissipating from the hulls. Most jumps scattered formations, minor navigational errors sending ships spiralling light seconds apart. But not this fleet. Not the XIII Legion. Every ship was in its place, preordained and ordered with mathematical certainty. Vast battleships surrounded by battle-packs of cruisers, shark-like in the void. Lumbering assault ships and transports, covered by fans of escorts and pickets. 

And at the centre of them all lay Maccrage’s Honour. A Gloriana-class battleship. The mightiest vessel for thousands of light years. A symbol of Terran wrath; the acme of Martian skill. Invincible, unstoppable, the writ of Imperial will manifest. 

Roboute Guilliman paid the splendour of his flagship no more heed than the meanest grav-car. 

“Shipmaster,” he said, walking onto the command pulpit with deceptively gentle step. “How fairs the fleet?” 

“It fairs well, my lord Guilliman. No ships lost in the transit. One frigate reporting minor engine trouble.” The shipmaster was an old man, held upright by dignity and burnished augmetics. But his mind defied his age, agile and flexible as in his prime. 

“I thought Civitas had No. 3 fusion chamber refitted back on Prandium?” 

“Yes, my lord.” The shipmaster did not evince surprise at his commander’s recall of the details. “The machine-spirit was displeased; the magnetic field housing is not aligning optimally.” 

“I see. I’ll make time for the Magos in due course. Thank you, shipmaster.” 

The old man nodded at the obvious dismissal and turned back to his station, transmitting flurries of information through the crew and servitors as they brought the ship up to full battle trim. Guilliman stepped back to let him work. He’d always admired void pilots. Bringing masses of materiel and energy together in perfect combinations to navigate the most hostile, yet most essential, realm. 

“Primarch,” came a voice behind him. 

“Marius,” he said, turning and smiling warmly. Marius Gage was the master of the First Chapter, the second in command of the Legion, and – importantly – a friend. “What have we found ourselves today?” 

“I know you can read the slate faster than I can summarise,” Marius replied with a tone that could be indulgence or weariness. 

“Theoretical: A good commander should learn to brief in all eventualities. Practical: I ask you to appraise me of compliance targets.”

Marius smiled wryly. “Theoretical: My Primarch enjoys tormenting me. Practical: he creates busy-work for his amusement.” His words were harsh, and a hot-tempered man might think them insulting, but his tone was anything but. 

“A bold thesis,” Guilliman commented mildly. He hadn’t told Marius his actual reason yet and wasn’t sure when he would. Simply, the Legion needed to have a capable commander. There were no guarantees he would always be fit to lead – from injury, or death. 

“Indeed,” Marius replied. “The target ahead is Karda. Human population concentrated in one major hivesprawl – no xenos. Large oceans, human standard atmosphere. Took the Old Night well, with a high technology base intact. At the confluence of three warp routes. Limited navy – handful of escorts in orbit - and some interstellar traders. That’s all we have at the moment. Give the auspexes time, and we’ll get more.” 

“Not unlike home,” Guilliman said, and his voice held the faintest trace of what the uncharitable might call melancholy. 

“Much more water than Maccrage,” Marius advanced. “It’ll make a forcible compliance harder.” 

“True. Let us hope it does not come to that.” 

There was a sudden flurry of buzzing binaric code from the lower command decks – one of the tech-priests interfacing with a servitor. Guilliman couldn’t understand it properly, didn’t have the knack like his brother Perturabo, but he knew the contours. His suspicion was confirmed as the chatter shifted from binaric to ship-cant, passing up through officers to the apex of the command pulpit. 

“My lord Guilliman,” said the shipmaster, turning from his screens. “A communication from the inhabited planet.” One wizened arm passed a dataslate. He could show it on the central hololith, but that was against the Primarch’s preference. A live electro-transcription was more secure. Less bombastic. 

Guilliman took the slate and thumbed the activation rune. It sprang to life, showing a fine-featured man in a grey uniform fronted with gold lace. There were a few seconds of silence – comm lag – and then he spoke in careful High Gothic. “Do I have the honour of addressing Roboute Guilliman of Maccrage, son of Konor, Primarch-Commander of the 13th Legion by the will of the proclaimed Emperor?” His accent was too perfect. 

“You do. I find myself at a disadvantage, sir.” It was a courtly formulation, old-fashioned, learnt on Maccrage. The diplomatic speak of the Ultima fringe – something the Kardans would know. 

The seconds ticked by. “I am Lysander McAnaw of Karda, son of Sinon, Hierarch of Karda by the will of God and the people.” 

Guilliman found he wanted to sigh. Religion. Unreasonable. Invariably poorly thought through, inevitably the seed of bitterly illogical resistance. 

“You know my name, Hierarch. I presume you know my purpose?” 

“All Karda knows it, and all Karda rejects it. We shall not bow our heads to antitheist conquerors.” 

Guilliman made a note to call up his chief iterator and set her probing the planetary noosphere. It wasn’t impossible that the man was lying. But he suspected it’d be a lost cause. The formulation and attitude spoke of a religious democracy – never mind the economic structure, free traders rarely flourished under tyranny. 

“A treaty of friendship and alliance would more than match the needs of the Imperium.” He wasn’t lying. Karda’s main strategic value was astrogeographic, not material. Not that he expected the negotiating gambit to work, of course. Even if Karda was left untouched, further Imperial conquests in the surrounding area would give Terra – Maccrage, in practice – a stranglehold on its trade. A few tariffs later and the issue would be resolved. 

Compliance would come from the shifting of credits, not the thunder of guns, but it would come all the same. Some worlds preferred that comfortable descent to furious battle. 

Guilliman did not expect Karda to be one of them. 

“I speak for all Karda in refusing. No iterator’s sleight of hand shall part us from God or independence. If any of your ships enter our orbits, they will be fired upon.” The slate fuzzed back to blank greyness. Guilliman set it down next to the hololith and thought through the merits of sighing again. 

Then he turned to Marius, who’d been standing back at a respectable distance. “Marius,” he said. “Summon Heraclea, Tulia, and Roscher. We’ve work ahead.” 

\--- 

The strategium was hardly filled by the small assembly, the group almost comically insignificant among the great rows of tiered seating that could accommodate every officer of the expedition. Guilliman preferred it that way, liked the ability to hash out plans with advisors before making a broader presentation. 

Theoretical, he would think to himself, I am human and hence flawed. Practical, my ideas require sharpening. 

This self-assessment was not one which tallied with the estimations of many of his subordinates. In the matter of self-knowledge, however, he allowed himself a little superiority. 

Admiral Ardias Roscher was just finishing up his assessment of the orbital situation, using the great hololith display in the centre to show the orbital paths and enemy assets. Roscher was a small, rather plump man, with a taste for Tallassarian sweetcakes. He was also a prodigious tactician. 

“In summary,” he said, with an expansive sweep his arm, “three cruiser divisions should more than suffice to clear the orbital paths.” He saw the question on Guilliman’s face before it was posed. “We’ll stick to high orbits and use lances to ameliorate ground fire.” 

Heraclea jumped in. She was tall, spare, and always wore regulation camouflage fatigues. When questioned, she’d said it was to save credits on the laundry cycles. That a general could wash clothes for free seemed, quite intentionally, to have slipped her notice. 

“We can’t feth around in the void forever, Roscher. Sooner or later we’ll have to land, and if we haven’t suppressed their defences, it’ll be a frakking bloodbath.” 

“I suppose the Primarch will not permit a saturation bombardment?” Roscher asked, with an air of doleful certainty. 

“You suppose rightly,” Guilliman said. He liked to stand back from these meetings and watch, seek new theoreticals from old arguments, redirect with deft hand. He’d sat at the war councils of many of his brothers and found them insufficient. Reason was achieved through debate, not demands. “Tulia, what have you made of the noosphere so far?” 

“Only excerpts so far, my lord, mostly vox-chatter.” Tulia was a daughter of Maccrage, a friend of the Primarch in his youth – not that it would bar her from the courtly politesse of her station. “Their faith, a variant of the Catheric denomination if I am not mistaken, is deep-rooted. As is belief in their government. It will be a difficult target to iterate.” 

“What of their armies, what has your snooping revealed?” Heraclea burst in, cholerically. 

Tulia gave her a quelling look. “I was coming to it. You will have to consult with the Magos Technicus for a full read-out, but my iterators believe a force of two hundred million is likely.” 

Guilliman had guessed as much. A combination of the iron laws of mobilisation, coupled with estimated population and founded on rock-deep ideology. The confirmation was displeasing, but welcome. The shape of the enemy was revealed. 

“Bones of Ardium,” Heraclea swore under her breath – a different tone to her regular curses. Marius just looked grim. 

“We’ll not fight them,” Guilliman said, knowing that this was the moment to intervene, to set the direction for the campaign to come. “Not directly, and not immediately. Ardias, clear the orbits – decisively. Double the complement, we’ve the numbers for it. We must take every opportunity to cement within Kardan minds the futility of their struggle.” 

Roscher smiled the smile of the blessed. For all his love of sugarworks, his true calling was void war. When his Primarch unleashed him, he was eager for the fray. 

“Tulia, when the orbits are taken, coordinate with the Magos for full noosphere infection. Start your iteration and influence efforts as soon as practicable. Make them doubt all but the certainty of our power.” 

Tulia nodded with learnt inclination. 

Guilliman went on, his words fast but measured, reasoned in pitch yet wrathful in content. All turned towards a singular purpose. “Heraclea, coordinate with the fleet on auspex intrusions into the upper stratosphere. Build the mosaic of their forces, their command structure.” 

Her grin was feral, white teeth shining against her dark face. “And know how to smash them.” That got a mild nod. 

“That will be all.” Guilliman said. “Now, let us look to this day.” 

The humans gave their salutes and left with business-like stride. Marius remained. “I note one formation without orders, Primarch,” he said, wryly. 

Guilliman let out the sigh he’d been holding for the past hour. “I can only hope there is no need for the Legion. Better to iterate and awe from the orbits. If we commit in strength, we’ll only catalyse resistance.”

“Or fear,” Marius said, and Guilliman turned sharply. 

“Do not take me for Curze.” His voice held a strain of chastising anger. “Fear is a tool of the moment. Certainty, reasoned acknowledgement, those are building blocks of enduring compliance.”

“I’ve run the theoreticals,” Marius said, undeterred, without the creeping awe or fear which destroyed the rational mind. “This world will not break from action at the fringes.” 

There was a moment of silence, lingering in the still air. 

“This is not a war I want,” Guilliman said, his voice heavy, words with no clear addressee. “This world looks to be well-governed, ordered, proud of its rights yet pacific in their application. If they were a backwater, I would leave them. But I cannot, if the campaign east is to progress. It falls upon us to bring them to compliance. It is a lamentable duty.” 

He paused, and then seemed almost to shake himself minutely. “Forgive me, Marius,” he said, voice as resolute as it had been weak. “Nothing but a moment of melancholy.” 

“Of course, Primarch,” said Marius, and they left the strategium, and spoke no more of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an experiment in many ways - my first proper 40k fic (well, 30k, but shh), my first time writing in third person, and my first time trying to experiment with markedly different prose styles for characters. Let's see how it goes. Updates every week on Saturday evening! 
> 
> For this chapter, what did you think about Guilliman? I leaned a bit more towards Annadale's depiction (fairly cold, logical, lots of practicals and theoreticals) than Abnett's (much warmer and more human, very much like Octavian) - frankly because it's easier to write - but hoping I captured some of the character's depth. I was a bit worried he sounds too much like Ferrus or Perturabo; thoughts on this would be appreciated!


	2. The Admiral's War - Roscher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admiral Ardias Roscher clears the Kardan orbit of enemy warships, and his plate of home-made biscuits.

Void war, Admiral Ardias Roscher had always thought, held a particular elegance which his terrestrial cousins lacked. True, the ships he manoeuvred were vast, mountains of plate and guns and reactors. Yet they moved, when conducted aright, with grace. 

His ships, eighteen cruisers arrayed in six divisions, swam towards the planet. He couldn’t see them, of course, but the auspex-fed holotank gave crisp rendering. Let others pace and fret upon the command pulpit, looming over the shipmaster – his place was with the whole force. 

The formation was simple enough. Two divisions comprised a wall bearing down on the enemy. To their retro and progrades lay a division apiece, the cheeks of the formation. Another pair of divisions made up the top and base, such that the whole apparatus appeared like a box with a wall missing. Each division had its associated escorts in rough spheres, defending all angles. 

It wasn’t a delicate structure. It wasn’t a delicate task, either. 

The enemy were three light cruisers, nine escorts, and a motley handful of corvettes. Five bulbous merchant vessels had been burning hard away from the oncoming Imperial fleet – they were of no immediate concern. 

It was a few minutes until outer lance range. The enemy commander, Roscher judged, was well-trained but greener than Macraggian grass. The auspexes kept showing little squirts of directional thrusters as they fiddled with the precise orientations of the ships. A fusser. Roscher didn’t like fussers. 

Except in restaurants, of course, but that was an entirely separate matter from work. His husband tended to protest when he pressed the cutlery into service as diagrammatic components of a void battle demonstration.

“Tell Ekaterina to fire off some long-burners, box them from terrestrial angles,” he said to one of the comms lieutenants near where he was standing. 

“Aye aye, sir.” He tapped a handful of codes onto the console, to send a burst of re-processed binaric off with the orders. 

“Thank you. Would you care for a biscuit?” 

The lieutenant’s face was pale as a moon under his brimmed hat. “Sir?” 

“A biscuit.” Roscher took one from the box on the side of the hololith projector and waved it at him. “I substituted Tallassarian sugar for Calthian – different oxygenation, you know.” 

“Oh, well, I’d be honoured, sir,” said the boy. Roscher gave him a nod of approval and handed the biscuit over, before turning back to the holotank. 

As ordered, Ekaterina – heading the 47th Division – had fired two rounds of long-burners. The torpedoes were larger than the norm, carrying greatly increased fuel allotments. Their course was programmed to arc around the enemy formation and come at them from behind. 

Even as he watched, the enemy fleet disgorged fighters, which dropped back to picket against the long-burners. Unwise, that decimated the combat patrol. Unless? He stopped for a moment and thought. Then the enemy strategy came to him. By waiting with spooled up reactors, they could execute a sudden turn to hit one wing of the formation, get in among it to throw off targeting by the rest of the fleet, and break out. The rearwards picket was a poor choice for a stand-up fight, but irrelevant for them – they weren’t going to slug it out long enough for weakened fighter complements to matter. 

It was bold, he had to give them that. Very bold. Letting them get encircled, luring him in. Pity he had to scotch their plans. 

“Tell Nathaniel and Alizabeth I want their macrocannons firing to pro and retrograde of the enemy formation. Just like Sacunus.” 

There was a muffled sound of acknowledgment. He turned to see the lieutenant blushing, and inputting data, and furiously chewing all at the same time. 

Roscher smiled paternally. “I should have said, they’re a little stodgy. Must have been a defect in the box-oven.” 

Overly gooey biscuit or no, the orders got through, and moments later the two divisions of the wall started spitting shells around the enemy fleet. If they turned now, they’d expose their broadsides to a punishing fusillade. 

Either they’d turn their vulnerable hindquarters and flee, or they’d come right at him. 

Seven seconds later, the enemy charged. 

“All ships, stop burn,” he said crisply. He didn’t wait for the confirmations. “Torpedoes and lances. 2nd and 19th Divisions retarget macro in thirty seconds.” 

His orders played out across the holotank. Searing red and blue lance beams reached out from all sides, scoring into the enemy ships. Two of their escorts exploded at once, sun-bright flashes casting forth a corona of debris. On their heels came the torpedoes, dozens streaking from all directions, overwhelming defences and exploding in pin-pricks. 

Another escort detonated. 

The enemy returned fire, but it was weak. Macrocannons pumped shells into the void, but with their auspexes blinded with the blizzard of fire, they had no targets. The cogitators guiding their lances scoured for a lock – found one – fired. An escort limped away from the 47th Division pack, armour scored but nothing more. 

Then the macrocannons of the 2nd and 19th engaged with deadly purpose. 

Unlike the others, they had no risk of fratricide, no need to hold back. Their fire blotted a cruiser from orbit, swept through the corvettes like wind upon a meadow, reactor cook-offs painting brief constellations onto the night. 

The two remaining cruisers turned prograde, attempting to break into 47th’s formation. But the damage was done, their engines blown and shattered. They drifted, broadside on, reactive thrusters pulsing to turn all too slowly. 

The fire came again. The ships died. One cooked off, the other a wreck without engines or weapons, barely holding structural integrity. 

The battle was over. It had taken approximately a minute and a half. 

\--- 

Of course, the work didn’t stop with the firing. Damage assessments had to be made and transmitted, debris blown from dangerous paths with lazy side-swipes of secondary batteries, new holding orbits determined. 

And prisoners had to be gathered. There were always a few, even from the most lethal exchanges of fire. Escape pods, fighter pilots, those among wrecks who donned survival suits in time. 

Roscher liked prisoners. Not the act of taking them, per se, although he appreciated it when he could – slaughter wasn’t his vocation – but rather the process of interaction. Of learning new points of view, understanding reasons for compliance and resistance alike. Some overzealous dolt had once accused him of being disloyal for this affectation. On the contrary, Roscher held, it was the most loyal interpretation of the Imperial Truth possible. 

Theoretical: The Imperial Truth held that all could be explained by reasoned exploration. Theoretical: The Imperial Truth was strengthened with new knowledge. Thusly, Practical: The Imperial Truth was well served by gathering information from & of the enemy. 

That he enjoyed it was besides the logical point. 

And the Kardan prisoner, they had taken was proving most interesting indeed. Roscher watched the interrogation from a discretely positioned camera. 

She was a slight woman, twenty years – perhaps twenty-five. Pale skin, close-cropped hair – a military cut for a void-helm. Nails bitten to the quick. A nasty burn, covered by a healing unguent, on the side of her face. “I am Serina Alkins, daughter of Mihal, lieutenant-primaris, service ident 4179G6. That is all I am at liberty to say.” 

The words were rehearsed and had the confidence of officialdom about them. With a certain delivery, they might even have sounded resolute. But her voice was high and strained and shook a little at the end. Combat stress, Roscher judged. Unsurprising. 

“Alright,” said the man – tawny, stocky - opposite her. “Good to meet you, Lieutenant Alkins. My name’s Marcus, I’m an iterator.” He spoke calmly, reassuringly. Not quite friendly, but not a stellar league away from it, either. 

Alkins didn’t respond, not directly. Her lips were moving, muttering some curse or prayer – too quiet for the vox to pick up. 

“Do you have any allergies?” Marcus asked. 

Alkins stopped and looked up, vaguely bewildered. “What – why?” 

He shrugged. “We’ve got to feed you. Rather embarrassing if we accidentally killed you in the process, right?”

Her face evinced bewilderment for a moment, and then iron control smoothed it. “I will not give you the means to prolong my torture,” she said, with a declaratory voice. 

“We’re not going to torture you.” 

“I don’t believe you.” She spoke with doleful certainty. 

It was, Roscher mused, remarkable what an iterator could get out of people. In less than a minute, they’d learnt of allergies – aiding an assessment of enemy medicae capability – and the starting sketch of a psychological portrait of hostile forces. 

And Marcus was already pushing on. 

“If we were going to torture you, do you think we’d have given you medicae attention? Or let you walk through the ship without blinds or noise-cancellers? Have any of our men been harsh in their treatment of you?” 

Alkins seemed taken aback. They were obvious practicals, of course, but a focus on presumed impending torture would, Roscher had to admit, blind even the doughtiest to them. 

“You’re not going to torture me?” she echoed, voice uncertain. 

“That’s right,” Marcus said, gently, and then spoke again with more business-like tones. “And anyway, aside from the obvious moral issues, it’s useless for getting information. You’re an intelligence officer, you know this.” 

“How did you know I was intelligence?” she asked, voice wary and curious in equal measure. 

He shrugged. “Informed guess. The sun-and-flower device on your shoulder is a common indicatory sigil for military intelligence in this sector of the galaxy.” 

She blinked. 

Marcus used the opportunity. “Serina – may I call you Serina?” She nodded, mutely. “What do you know of your history? You can talk about that, right – hardly of military relevance?” 

A moment passed in silence, and then another, and then she spoke. “We were slaves under the devils of the outer reaches, eons ago. The devils were nomadic, moving in great convoys among the stars. God knew and detested the abomination of slavery, still more when perpetrated against His chosen people.” 

Her words rang louder, more confident, the rehearsed cant of a scholam flowing freely. “God spoke to the Prophet Solon in his dreams, and the prophet readied our people for struggle against the devils. When the time was opportune God cast their fleets asunder and transported us to this new world, far from their grasp. With his dying breath, the prophet commanded us to fortify it as a haven for the chosen people against all the terrors of the long darkness, until the coming of God to save us in perpetuity.” 

The story ended, and she seemed to almost slump, learned confidence gone. Roscher tapped some notes onto his data-pad. Demythologized, it seemed plausible enough. Slaves of some xenos race, exploiting the opportunity of a warp storm of the Old Night to escape their captors.   
It was the way of iterators, of course, not to poke and prod at foundational myths. It only angered adherents. Expansion, earnest questioning, that was the path to achieve the Imperial Truth. 

“Do you know of your history before slavery under the devils?” asked Marcus. 

Alkins shook her head, and he leant forward to explain, to illuminate. “Five thousand years ago, the entire galaxy was united under human rule. No devils or monsters would dare prey upon us for fear of our mighty fleets. It was an age of peace, high art and culture, prosperity beyond our wildest imaginations.” 

She shook her head again, hesitant, caught between her experience and the burning passion in Marcus’ voice. “That seems…fantastical.” 

“Do you like recaf?” he asked, a sudden shift. 

“Obviously,” she said, with something almost like derision in her voice. “I’m a fleet officer, I run on the stuff.” 

“Where did it come from?” 

There was a silence. 

“What about the design of our ships? They’re fairly similar, too.” 

She didn’t say anything, and Marcus leant forward on the table, pitching his voice a fraction lower, quieter – trained iterator tricks to show intensity, sincerity, trust. “I am an iterator belonging to the 12th Expedition Fleet of the Imperium of Man. There are three thousand similar fleets surging through the void, all for one purpose – to restore unity to our shattered galaxy. To re-establish that lost age of peace, of truth, of light. To banish forever the scourge of war and devilish predation.” 

He let the words hang for a second, and another. Roscher felt himself leaning forward almost instinctively. 

“Will you help us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an interesting one to write! I enjoy Roscher as a character - although interested to hear thoughts on whether concept works, at times he felt a bit out of place with Warhammer - and interrogation scenes are always fun. Curious also for feedback about the actual void battle; though it was brief, did it make at least a bit of sense?


	3. Breaking The Path - Heraclea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roscher's ships might have swept the Kardan fleet from the skies, but securing the orbit to support an invasion is a trickier prospect.

“My lady general,” said the naval adjutant in a queerly nervous tone. Heraclea looked up from her roast grox sandwich. He paused, as if expecting her to say something. She gave him a gimlet stare, and he went on, words almost tumbling in haste. “Admiral Roscher offers his compliments, begs your pardon, and requests you in the strategium at your earliest convenience.” 

She chewed, and swallowed, before replying. “Does he now?” 

The under-officer blanched a little more. “Y-yes, ma’am. Yes, he does.” 

“Right. I’ll see him shortly,” she said. He recognised the obvious dismissal, for all its lack of the ordinary courtesies, and took to his heels, scudding between the rows of benches and tables in the refectory. 

One of the soldiers – Tulio - sitting at the table barked a laugh. “Got ‘im running scared!” 

Heraclea smiled and shrugged. “It’s a pass-time. Even so, duty calls, gents.” 

The squad let out groans of disappointment and imprecations against all naval officers. Its magnitude was, of course, feigned. But there was, Heraclea knew, a kernel of truth to it. Her men liked her, and she liked them back. Strained a little by rank, but real all the same. 

She rose, sandwich in hand. “A throne on Venatus for the regicide,” she said over her shoulder, as she walked away. That bet provoked a renewed storm of argument. Venatus and Quintus had been playing the same game of regicide for four hours, and the entire squad had taken bets on who was going to win, feeding a long-running argument. Her pitching in only reignited it. 

Little touches like that made for excellent stories. 

Once out of the refectory, her pace quickened. Bullying functionaries was fun enough, and the projection of insouciance was a matter of pride. But Ardias Roscher didn’t issue summons – and that was what it was – over nothing. A few minutes took her to the grav-train station on the strategium line, and hence to the chamber itself. 

She walked into it without announcement. Roscher recognised the sound of her combat boots on the metal planking, turned, and regarded her half-eaten sandwich. He wrinkled his nose. “What in Terra’s name is that?” 

“Roast grox sandwich,” she said. “From the soldier’s refectory.” 

“What’s it like?” he asked, a nervy tone to his voice. He always was taken aback by precisely what she ate. 

“Stringy,” she said, and took another bite, chewing contemplatively. She kept talking around the mouthful. “Tough. Leathery, perhaps? Not bad with salt.” 

“You know, if you were hungry, I did have confections. No need to resort to…that.” 

She grunted, walked closer, and sat into one of the command thrones. “Guessing you didn’t summon me for refreshment. What’s the problem?” 

Roscher settled back into another throne. “Better just to show you,” he said, and flicked a switch for the hololith. 

A ghostly blue wireframe sprung into the air, rapidly filling out into a tactical map of near Karda spaces. A small blue dot, tagged as the destroyer Certain Purpose, was nosing in towards the lower orbital paths. Auspex scanning, to understand Kardan defences. There were no enemy fleet assets in sight, and the ship was well above the projected range of hostile ground fire. 

Then it blipped out, replaced with a golden death marker. Heraclea glanced at Ardias. “Mines?” she asked. 

He nodded. “Yes. Gets worse, though.” 

Even as he spoke, the hololith showed a minesweeper division boosting in. They fired a handful of times, blotting out mine markers exposed by their enhanced void-auspexes. Then, one of them blinked out, with the gold death marker. Another died. The third had time to register immense ground fire, far beyond the power and range of any estimate, before it too detonated. 

The hololith turned itself off. 

“Survivors?” Heraclea asked. 

Roscher shook his head. “Too quick. Fast deaths, at least.” 

“Quite,” she replied. Then, “Damn.” 

“Indeed,” he said. “Minefield in addition to overwatch is a complex issue. We can’t suppress those batteries from long-range. Not without ordnance that approaches Exterminatus-grade.” 

Of course, the fleet had that capacity. They were the 12th Expeditionary Fleet, every weapon and every arm of the Crusade was represented there. But it was not the will of the Primarch, nor the teaching of Ultramar, to purge worlds so. 

“I can’t send my boys down there until they’re degraded,” she said. Roscher blinked, and she leant forward, hands fanning out to make the point. “The troop ships, they’re too large. Unless there’s a window, they’ll be cut to pieces. Even the Astartes will have difficulty, their Stormbirds will have to come in very fast.”

There was a moment of silence. 

“A decapitation strike, perhaps?” he asked. “A kill-squad could be inserted by teleporter. Their main hivesprawl is void-shielded, but it is not fortified beyond the shield. A sufficient bombardment could break it long enough.”

Heraclea shook her head. “Not politically viable. These people already hate and fear us. Burning their capital district and assassinating their leader might win temporary victory, but it guarantees revolt.”

Roscher sat back in his throne. “I will defer to your superior expertise.” Heraclea smiled thinly at that. Her family was an old and storied one amid the politics of Maccrage. She was not close with it. “In any case,” he went on, “The Primarch is on his way.” He left unsaid the fervent hope that Guilliman would hold a solution when they couldn’t. 

The statement was well-timed. Less than half a minute later, the doors irised open to receive the Primarch, accompanied by Marius Gage. Their footfalls thundered on the deck. Roscher and Heraclea rose from their thrones, and Guilliman waved them back down again. An old ritual. Not without purpose. 

“Apologies, Roscher, I was with the Magos. I’ve been briefed en route,” said Guilliman. “This makes things more complex. You can’t suppress the batteries from orbit.” It was at once a factual reconfirmation and implicit order. 

“No, my lord,” Roscher acknowledged. 

“You have picts of the sites?” he asked. 

Roscher nodded and tapped the hololith controls. Seven pictures floated into view, each of the vast defence laser batteries. Lines connected them to location data on the globe of Karda – six clustered around their hivesprawl, one sitting further east over a secondary conurbation. 

“Magnify the eastern image,” Guilliman said. As he did so, he took a plastek flimsy and a pencil from his tunic and began scribbling notation at pace. Roscher complied, and they all fell silent, watching him work, his eyes flicking back and forth. 

Perhaps forty seconds passed, then he said. “Give me auspex readings of the eastern site’s void shield.” Columns of numbers flared to life in the air, no verbal confirmation – nobody wanted to disturb. 

Another twenty seconds or so. Then he put down the flimsy and spoke with fluid confidence. 

“There is a two second fluctuation in the void shielding of the eastern defence laser battery every seventeen minutes. A lance strike in this window will set off a cascade failure, opening the path for a teleported kill-squad.” 

His voice took on a lecturing tone. Heraclea had once remarked, rather tartly, that the Primarch would make an excellent schoolmarm. She had been three glasses of amasec deep at that point; but the argument remained the same, even sober. 

“If the site is disabled,” he went on, “it will open a 2-hour gap daily in their orbital defence coverage over the eastern portion of the main continental mass. Heraclea – will this be sufficient to sustain an Army ground effort?” 

She made a thoughtful noise. “Probably. We’ll need plentiful reserves ground-side to make up for lack of orbital flexibility, but it’s doable.” 

He nodded sharply. “Good. Brief your commanders. Legion assets will secure footholds, but I want this to be an Army affair. My sons will only alienate these people by their presence.” 

Politics, Heraclea thought sourly. That was the cause in which her men would die. Even if it was undoubtedly a faster route to lasting compliance. 

\--- 

The impromptu briefing session rumbled on a little longer. Deployment timetables were consulted, attack formations detailed. Guilliman’s calculations were checked by cogitator – at his insistence. The attack would begin in one day, shipboard time. It was all led with iron command by the Primarch. The planning process was the externalisation of his will. Heraclea was never sure if she liked it. For sure, he had never led them astray. But she felt delegated to, almost looked down on. Never with deliberate condescension, of course, but it still rankled. 

Nothing could change that. It was simply the natural outcome of humanity walking in the steps of the gods. 

She preferred the Army planning sessions. Where she held court, could conduct and orchestrate as she saw fit. Or, chew on a lho-stub while she watched her commanders – petty military princelings in their own right – bicker like schola juves. 

“A landing right into that urb-sprawl would be suicide!” exclaimed Mattias Abel, general of the Fourth Host of Arcadian Secundus. He was a short man, invariably neatly attired no matter the situation. Not a bad chef. Got on well with Roscher. Of course, not being from Ultramar, there was a certain disconnection. 

“The Legion could do it,” Ea Cornelius said with blithe confidence. Hailed from Maccrage, along with much of his 14th Army Group. A scion of the old families – indicated by name and what Heraclea considered to be the most unfortunate Cornelian nose. 

She decided to intervene on that. “They could, but the casualties would be far too high.” 

Ea scoffed, and made to reply, but was beaten to the punch by Flavia Domitius, the swaggering commander of the 27th Army Group. She aped Heraclea’s style, wearing practical uniform, though hers was of her beloved tanker regiments. “Don’t be a dolt, Ea,” she said. “These people are zealots! Even if the void shields could be brought down, you can bet that every angle will be covered by fire.” 

Ea retaliated, and the argument rumbled on. Heraclea sucked on the lho-stub and examined the hololithic display. She could see Atilius Vitus, commander of the 43rd Army Group, leaning back and doing the same. Or just napping. Atilius was an old man, even with the juvenat treatments, and he had a tendency to fall asleep before battles. The men loved him for it. 

The map on the hololith collated the auspex and picter scans of the surface through some technosorcery which Heraclea had never deigned to learn – the Mechanicum was a recalcitrant tutor, in any case. It showed the eastern portion of the main continental mass, perhaps two thousand kilometres from the primary hivesprawl. A great river near split the continent, running south to the sea from a spine of northern mountains. Near its source lay an urban settlement, sprawling perhaps three hundred kilometres, centred around what the Mechanicum tentatively identified as hydroelectric generators, albeit of unknown make. The western banks of the river were fortified, with particular attention given to six vast complexes of bridges – the only ways, both sides knew, to move sufficient materiel for campaigning. 

At length – five minutes, perhaps, which was an eternity among bickering commanders – she rose from her seat. Ea and Flavia, who were nearing fisticuffs by that stage, ceased almost at once. 

“The Mechanicum believes,” she said, “that the bulk of the enemy field force, perhaps some thirty million men under arms, is centred around that urb-sprawl. The rest are concentrated around those bridges, with a line of vedettes between.”

The assorted commanders in their assorted finery nodded. 

“The draft operational intent is simple. The Legion, accompanied by the Fourth Host, shall land east of the urb-sprawl and proceed to fix the enemy there. The 14th and 43rd will mount fixing assaults on the river, while the 27th takes the southern-most bridge complex and cuts north – encircling the whole force of the enemy and pushing them against the river. Does this meet with your approval?” 

“I’d like the 43rd with me, rather than fixing,” said Flavia. “I know most of the enemy reserves in the main hivesprawl are militia, but they may have enough to counter-attack. My flank will be dangerously exposed while reducing the pocket.” 

Heraclea watched Ea carefully – he liked to pick fights with her over the smallest thing. But he didn’t say anything. That was a good barometer of the validity of the point. 

“Atilius?” she asked, with the half-tentative tone one used to wake the recumbent. 

“I’m awake, ‘Clea, I’m awake,” he said, opening his eyes and blinking blearily. “I can detach the 74th and 91st Armies for service with the 27th, I believe. Would that suffice, Ms. Flavia?” 

“General Flavia,” said Flavia, a smile dancing. It was an old game. 

“Ms. General Flavia, then,” said Atilius, with the same untrammelled courtesy. 

“It should be enough,” she said then, addressing the thrust of the question. “I may need support from the 14th if the contravallation is threatened.” 

Ea looked sceptical but nodded reluctantly. “As long as we can proof against a western breakout, it should be viable.” 

“How awfully charitable of you, Ea!” Flavia said, sweetness dripping from her tone. 

Heraclea sat back as the pair of them went at it again and took out a dataslate. There was a lot of administration to do for an invasion, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the slightly more action-focused Chapter 2, behold a pretty much all talk Chapter 3! I'm trying to keep these interactions interesting in their own right, and not just filler/set up for other things - hopefully succeeding on that front. Also, if anyone's got headcanon about the Imperial Army in general, or the Ultramar Auxilia in particular, would love to hear and incorporate it.


End file.
